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Comment by lrvick | Hacker News Reader

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You might be right when it comes to employees, but definitely not when it comes to users.

There's a lot of people using X, and the vast, vast majority of them don't care much for Musk or actively dislike him.

THe problem with X is that it is (and always was) sort of an echo chamber, there's no average X user, everybody sees very different content based on what they follow. The average HNer probably won't notice the huge swathes of people who are on there just for sports content or their favorite celebrity. Those people usually don't care much for Musk, except when he appears in some funny meme.

Im there for finance news and compiler tech. It’s the only platform where I don’t feel like I am force fed Hollywood drama. You just have to follow people you respect instead of people you find amusing.

even for niche topics i only recall "influencers" left there by the time i left.

i guess it's the new Facebook, social network for old people who will not open a different app ever, for some small groups?

Twitter has always skewed older, in terms of not having kids on it, but it's still mostly people in their 20s and 30s. And there's far less 50+ yr olds in 2024 than FB according to statista:

Twitters largest demo is 25-34yr olds = 36%, 18-24 = 34.2%. While 50+ yr = 7%

https://www.statista.com/statistics/283119/age-distribution-...

Facebooks largest demo is 25-34yr olds = 24% followed by 35-44 = 19%. While 50+ yr = 24%

https://www.statista.com/statistics/187549/facebook-distribu...

16-28 is the gold of demographics. all those numbers skew A LOT to the lower end of the age range to pretend they have that demographic when in reality they do not.

If you look at "latest" and not "recommended", you don't see those, and if you do, you can just unfollow.

Isn't it only an echo chamber if you follow people with the same outlook and idealogy?

Echo chamber might not be the right word, but most people are/were on Twitter for a relatively narrow usecase. You joined Twitter for Fortnite content, or for web development, or for local stuff. It's why these groups were described as "media twitter" or "Black twitter" or 'NBA twitter"

Musk pumps himself to the top though; I neither follow or click on his messages, but they still plop in my notifications. Further yes, for some reason people still use it so I have to as well or I sell nothing. However, if it would collapse or have Not Musk, it might be better. We will see eventually.

I'm only on Twitter for Sport, but deranged political content tends to infect even that more regularly, so i finally bite the bullet and gave my data to Zuck through Instagram where I don't have to read conspiracy on athletes I actually like.

it's just a matter of time.

when you stop dwelling on the random hot yoga posts while scrolling, after an ad scroll by, they will pump it up to other engagement content to feed the pavlovian cycle.

My consumption isn't high enough, I often look up at the interesting sport stories of the week, maybe a dozen post every day during the Olympics, but I used to use Twitter once a month to follow the NBA stories (hopefully it will work on Instagram, else I will end up subscribing to a real sport news media).

It’s not like this anymore I think. I destroyed my Twitter account way before the acquisition by Musk.

But I recently created a disposable account because it happens that my regional train lines have hired good community managers and so I know I can reach them. Otherwise I just never use it.

Since I subscribed to basically nothing, I’ve got the full algorithm version. It’s frankly horrible. I’m submerged by far right content and civilization wars.

It’s perfect for my social media addiction because it make me want to leave as soon as I finished what I had to do but it really feels like an unsafe place for anyone who somehow still have some mental health left.

I imagine that people with more suscriptions are seeing less of this shit but I wouldn’t be so sure and also, I personally wouldn’t tolerate to use a platform with such dysfunctional moderation.

Used to always be an echo chamber, that’s true. Yet the amount of alt-right, post-facts, no-vax, conspiracy theory shit I’m served on X despite me not following any of that has increased dramatically to the point of making X a cesspool of toxic content. Most of that is spewed or retweeted by Musk himself

Nah, no matter what you follow, you get pushed extreme right-wing posts. Being on there only helps support Musk and his now Trump following.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Twitter/comments/1ehq5ig/why_are_99...

I'm not a fan, I don't follow him, I just have my timeline on "Following" and almost never see any Elon content unless I look for it. I follow a small carefully curated list of people and still get value from the site.

My brother's weird friend, who I don't associate with much, says Twitter is still great for porn. If/when they pull a Tumblr will be the start of their irrelevancy,

It's great for people to advertise porn and sexual services. It's not very great at monetising them. Most of it is just teasers for OnlyFans et al and more personal services.

I wouldn't really go on Twitter for that.

Oh yeah everyone that hates him went to Threads, right?

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